Scientists to AGU: Drop Exxon Sponsorship

Two Democratic lawmakers leading a campaign to hold ExxonMobil accountable for its decades of climate disinformation have written to AGU’s leadership, urging the world’s largest association of Earth scientists to reconsider its controversial decision last month to continue accepting money from the oil company.

“You have been fooled,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) write in a letter dated last Friday to AGU’s president, hot on the heels of similar frustrations expressed by some of the world’s leading climate scientists. “Whatever position AGU chooses to take, you should not take it based on self-serving representations by ExxonMobil,” say the lawmakers in their letter.

The lawmakers were “surprised at AGU’s conclusion,” pointing out that as recently as 2014, ExxonMobil was funding “several organizations that cast doubt on climate change.” AGU’s 2015 Organizational Support Policy states that “AGU will not accept funding from organizational partners that promote and/or disseminate misinformation of science, or that fund organizations that publicly promote misinformation of science.” One example Whitehouse and Lieu give is the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose official current position on climate change describes it as an “inevitable” and “historical phenomenon” and states that “the debate will continue on the significance of natural and anthropogenic contributions.”

Whitehouse and Lieu also believe that AGU’s decision to stick with ExxonMobil did not account for AGU’s Organizational Support Policy that “the public statement(s) of our organizational partners shall not directly oppose those of AGU,” which, they argue “cannot be reconciled” with ExxonMobil’s “lobbying efforts [that] are 100% opposed to any action on climate.” “As Members of Congress,” they add, “we wanted to warn you not to take the [ExxonMobil] ‘position’ on a carbon price at face value. It is false.”

President Leinen has posted a response to the lawmakers, saying that AGU’s Board will “review and discuss the information.”

The AGU Board has announced its decision to continue its “current engagement between ExxonMobil and AGU including acceptance of funding from ExxonMobil,” explaining that “it was not possible to determine conclusively whether or not ExxonMobil is currently participating in misinformation about science, either directly or indirectly.”

This decision appears to ignore the consilience of evidence demonstrating ExxonMobil’s ongoing support of climate science misinformation. Originators of the open letter submitted a report documenting ExxonMobil’s present involvement in climate misinformation for the Board’s consideration (a copy of the report is available for download here). The report provides specific examples of how ExxonMobil is “in violation of AGU’s Policy because it remains a leading sponsor of think tanks, advocacy groups, and trade associations that promote climate science misinformation. Moreover, ExxonMobil financially supports more than 100 climate-denying members of Congress and continues to generate its own misinformative comments about climate science.”

Such examples include: (1) During ExxonMobil’s 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson casted doubt about the reliability of climate models by remarking: “we don’t really know what the climate effects of 600 ppm versus 450 ppm [of atmospheric CO2] will be because the models simply are not that good”; (2) At the ExxonMobil-sponsored 2015 Annual Conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Stephen Moore, a member of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Board, asserted that: “The biggest scam of the last 100 years is global warming…It’s no surprise that when you give these professors $10 billion, they’re going to find a problem.”

If you are a geoscientist and would like to add your name to the letter, please fill out this form.

February 22, 2016:

Today more than 100 geoscientists sent the following letter to the President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) – the world’s largest association of Earth scientists – urging the association to end its sponsorship deal with ExxonMobil. The oil giant is currently under investigation by the New York and California Attorneys General for its long history of climate denial campaigns.

Many notable scientists have signed on, including the former director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James E. Hansen, the former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Harvard Professor James J. McCarthy, Harvard Professor and author of Merchants of Doubt Naomi Oreskes, and Michael Mann– Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

The research disciplines of Earth sciences conducted by AGU members are diverse, but they are united by their shared value of truthfulness. AGU states that its mission and core values are to “promote discovery in Earth science for the benefit of humanity” and for “a sustainable future.” Indeed, AGU has established a long history of scientific excellence with its peer-reviewed publications and conferences, as well as a strong position statement on the urgency of climate action, and we’re proud to be included among its members.

But by allowing Exxon to appropriate AGU’s institutional social license to help legitimizethe company’s climate misinformation, AGU is undermining its stated values as well as the work of many of its own members. The Union’s own Organizational Support Policy specifically states that “AGU will not accept funding from organizational partners that promote and/or disseminate misinformation of science, or that fund organizations that publicly promote misinformation of science.” We believe that in fully and transparently assessing sponsors on a case-by-case basis, AGU will determine that some, including ExxonMobil, do not meet the standards of this policy. We therefore call on you as the President of AGU to protect the integrity of climate science by rejecting the sponsorship of future AGU conferences by corporations complicit in climate misinformation, starting with ExxonMobil.

While we recognize that some of AGU’s scientific disciplines are deeply tied to the fossil fuel industry, we are also increasingly aware of the tension within our community regarding how we should respond to the urgency of climate change as individual scientists and as institutions. It is time to bring this tension into the light and determine how an organization such as AGU should approach the major challenges of today to ensure that we truly are working for the benefit of humanity. In particular, as the world’s largest organization of Earth scientists, if we do not take an active stand against climate misinformation now, when will we?